Basketball's No. 1 Anti-Fan

Chapter 403 NBA's Biggest Connection
When Tatum performed at a high level, fans saw the Kings' true strength for the first time.

Or to be more precise, we saw the Kings' outside firepower.

Hansen, Mitchell and Tatum took turns attacking the Warriors' inside line, which increased the pressure on the Warriors' inside defense and also made it impossible for them to carry out efficient assist defense rotation.

Hield also took the opportunity to fire from the outside, hitting three-pointers one after another.

However, there are naturally reasons why the Warriors can rank first in the Western Conference this season. The Splash Brothers and George's outside configuration also have extremely fierce firepower from the outside.

The fans who came to the Golden One Arena tonight, including some who came all the way from the Bay Area to watch this "derby", were in for a treat as they saw a fierce scoring battle.

The two sides were evenly matched in the third quarter, and it was still difficult to tell who was better in the fourth quarter.

When the game reached one minute before the end, the two sides were tied at 135.

The emotions of the fans at the scene also reached a peak at this time, and the derby was played to the utmost.

It was at this last minute that everyone present understood why Han Sen was the best in history.

It's not about how many points he scored, or even how many championships he won, but that at this point in the game, he was able to use his personal ability to win the victory.

Curry made a key three-pointer in the last minute, but Hansen scored 7 points in the last minute.

A three-pointer to overtake the score, two free throws after breaking free from the ball, which resulted in Green's 6 fouls and leaving the game, and a mid-range jump shot that killed the game in the final moments.

When the final whistle sounded, the Golden One Arena was in a state of complete excitement.

This was the first time they had seen a countdown game at home, and it was also the first time they had truly felt Hansen's dominance at the critical moment.

Not to mention before, even as opponents they couldn’t feel it before, because the Kings couldn’t reach that stage at all!
The Kings players also began to celebrate around Hansen, and even Tatum seemed to have forgotten what happened in the game and was shouting excitedly.

Hansen and Tatum attended the post-match press conference together.

韩森今晚得到了54分10板11助攻的三双数据；塔图姆得到26分刷新赛季新高，其中下半场得到了18分。

"Jason played an aggressive game and I always thought he was the best player in the 2017 class and he will be an All-Star level player in the future."

When reporters asked Hansen Tatum about his performance, Hansen was generous with his praise.

This made Tatum's eyes widen.

It was hard to imagine that he was scolded in an almost humiliating manner by Han Sen in the locker room during halftime.

"I just realized I needed to be more aggressive with my shots and try to be more aggressive, but the most important thing is we won the game."

Tatum then talked about the reasons for his improved performance in the second half when answering reporters' questions.

After the press conference, Hansen left the venue and found that Tatum did not follow him, but he did not care.

Just like he had said to Lu before, he didn't care what Tatum thought. As long as Tatum could perform as he should, he didn't care about anything else.

This is also a change in Han Sen's mentality.

When he first entered the league, due to his limited strength, he needed to consider how to unite his teammates to perform well, even if the opponent was a troublemaker or a jerk.

But now he is so strong, he only needs to think about how to win.

That doesn't mean he will be arrogant. Like Jokic and Mitchell, Hansen treats them with kindness.

As for other people, even players like Tatum who he doesn't like very much, as long as they play well, he will still praise them.

But he obviously won't provide "psychological counseling" to each student one by one like before. That's what Lu needs to do.

After the game, the outside world reported it extensively.

A major rule of media reporting is exaggeration. The Kings, who were described as a team that even God could not lead the day before, surpassed the Warriors, Pelicans and Rockets overnight after defeating the Warriors and became the team most likely to win the championship in the Western Conference.

Most fans just read these reports, but one thing mentioned in these reports is eye-opening.

The Kings played 5 games, Hansen played in 4 games, 2 of which he scored 50+ points, one of which was 60 points. His current average score per game is 52 points!
Although the sample size of the game is small, and the intuitive feeling is not that strong because it is not a continuous 50+, such statistics are still shocking.

Time flies and it is now mid-December, and the NBA season has been underway for more than a month.

Over the past month, many of the fans' perceptions of basketball have been overturned.

The most shocking thing was the scoring explosion.

In the past, a game with 130+ points was rare in a season, and we could only see one or two games occasionally, but this season it has become commonplace.

The change brought about by changing the second offense to 14 seconds seems to be just an increase in the number of rounds in the game, but the invisible change it brings is the simplification of tactics by coaches.

In the earliest basketball rules, there was no 24-second offensive limit. Even today, the NCAA league still implements the 40-second offensive rule, which means that the offensive time limit is 40 seconds.

Under this rule, when one side has a leading advantage, it is easy to start ineffective dribbling and passing to delay time, which is also the main reason for the slow offensive pace of NCAA games.

The reason for 24 seconds is that this time allows most teams to play two complete tactical rounds.

Friends who often watch basketball games should know that the buzzer-beater is usually initiated in the last 10 seconds or so.

Now that the second offense is compressed to 14 seconds, it means that you must do one of the following two things in the second offense: perform a successful tactic; or perform two tactics within this time.

Theoretically, it is a better option to execute a successful tactic once, but neither the coach nor the players can ensure this, because the tactics will be read by the opponent, and after reading it successfully, they will inevitably encounter a situation where they cannot execute the tactics and need to execute them again.

This also led to the widespread use of simplified tactics such as pick-and-roll, mismatched one-on-ones, and off-ball three-pointers.

And this change affects more than just the secondary attack.

Because it is impossible for a team to train tactics specifically to target certain situations in the game.

Therefore, the tactics are simplified → the number of rounds is further increased → the pace of the game is constantly accelerated → the scores explode, this is a chain reaction.

This change also brought about an explosion in players' scoring.

In the past dozen seasons, the player ranked tenth in the league in scoring average has basically scored 23 or 24 points, but this year, Lillard is ranked tenth, averaging 26 points per game!
The last time such a big change occurred was in the 2004-2005 season, when the no-handcheck rule had just been implemented and the tenth-best score in the league was generally around 21 points.

And this year, the top players are still fighting each other. Westbrook ranks third.

He is having an unprecedented crazy season, averaging 31.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 10.4 assists per game!

What’s more worth mentioning is that this is his third consecutive season averaging a triple-double.

His performance was like Xiaohongshu, which made James fans break down like the American people who walked out of the Truman Show.

The so-called "omnipotence" that they had always boasted about was shattered to pieces.

Westbrook has proved that even in the NBA, the highest level of basketball in the world, as long as he is given enough ball possession, he can produce even better stats than Jordan.

James Harden, who ranks second, averages 36 points per game!
After countless hours of reading the rules at four in the morning, Harden's ability to deal with fraud has reached its peak. He averages 11 free throws per game this season, and his 88% free throw rate can steadily provide him with nearly 10 points in a game.

In addition, Harden averaged a historic 13.2 three-point shots per game this season, with a respectable hit rate of 36.8%, providing him with around 15 points every night.

Neither of these two items is too exaggerated when viewed separately. The former, like Maggette and Iverson in their early years, are at or even above this level, while the latter, like Curry and Lillard, are relatively close.

But the combination of the two creates this exaggerated performance.

But what is even more exaggerated is that even with such explosive scoring, Harden is still not the league's scoring leader.

The league's leading scorer is that man.

Hansen is averaging 40.6 points per game so far this season!
In the 2005-2006 season, Kobe was on a roll, scoring 9+ points in nine consecutive games and 40+ points in four games. The media once used the headline "Kobe only scored 4 points", which made people feel magical for a while.

But this season, Han Sen's score below 40 points really became a news headline, because Han Sen's score below 40 points is lowering his season average points!
However, what is not proportional to Hansen's performance is that the Kings' current record is 14 wins and 8 losses, ranking fourth in the Western Conference after the Warriors, Pelicans and Rockets.

Basketball is not a one-person sport. Mitchell's performance has been up and down, Sabonis is weak in the interior and his outside shooting is unstable, Stan's mentality is easily exploded, and the team lacks a qualified backup point guard. The Kings are facing many problems this season.

But the biggest problem is still Tatum.

Tatum had a highlight performance against the Warriors, but then gradually returned to being mediocre.

Although his desire to shoot has increased after the game against the Warriors, he feels more and more like a useless player.

He can break through, shoot mid-range shots, three-pointers, pass, and defend. As a young player, he gives people the impression of being mature and versatile, but when it comes to a round, he doesn't seem to have any killer moves.

His physical fitness is not outstanding, his breakthrough speed is too slow, his shooting is not stable enough, and his passing lacks creativity.

Even apart from their abilities, there always seemed to be a lack of chemistry between him and Han Sen.

As the season progressed, Hansen felt more and more like he was back in his rookie season, with James instead of Tatum on the court with him.

This has also caused Tatum to face increasing doubts and even become involved in some trade rumors.

Divac is involved here.

After being ruthlessly dismissed by the Kings, the former general manager of the Kings, who is also a meritorious player of the Kings, angrily exposed some things, including the negotiation issues with the Cavaliers.

He originally wanted to send Tatum away, but Hansen chose Doncic.

This makes it difficult for the outside world not to compare the two. In contrast, Doncic seized the opportunity of Murray's season-ending injury and played better and better alongside Jokic.

He is averaging 21.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 6.4 assists per game so far this season and has already won the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month award in November.

Tatum's only advantage over Doncic now seems to be his playing age, which also proves how bad Hansen's original choice was.

However, Hansen did not pay much attention to the comments from the outside world. Since he had chosen the king, he had already foreseen that he would face these problems.

If a team full of rookies immediately becomes championship-level teammates because of his arrival, that would be a magical story.

You know, even for Jokic, it took him three seasons to truly grow into a player who can stand on his own.

If he was in a hurry to achieve success, he would have asked Divac to go all in and trade for Leonard.

On this day, a guest came to Hansen's manor. It was Hughes, whom he had met at Thomas' funeral before.

Han Sen turned a deaf ear to Hughes's boasting, but he still gave him his contact information out of courtesy.

This time, Hughes heard about Tatum's situation in the Kings and came to Sacramento specifically.

It can be felt that Hughes, the godfather, cares very much about Tatum, the godson.

Han Sen had no intention of meeting Hughes at first because he was very busy.

It means the literal meaning. After deciding to become a boss after retiring, he also began to seek more in business.

After all, in the most optimistic scenario, the Kings shares he could sell when he retired would only be worth about 1 billion, which was not enough for him to buy a team.

He now lives the life of the lower-class people in the United States and has to work several jobs a day.

However, Hughes said that he had something very important to talk to Tatum about, so he finally made time to come out.

The two met by the fireplace in the castle's living room.

Although Sacramento is not a northern city in the United States and is not as cold as Cleveland, Christmas is approaching, which is also the coldest time of the year.

"I talked to Jason, he's just a little childish." Hughes didn't come to visit Hansen without preparation.

However, Hansen waved his hand. He had heard these familiar words from Lu before, but Tatum was actually already a father.

After seeing Hansen's reaction, Hughes quickly reacted and took out a photo from his pocket.

Han Sen took the photo and took a look at it, and was slightly stunned.

It was a group photo, in which there was a child, about eight or nine years old, wearing Kobe's All-Star No. 8 jersey. It should be Tatum.

The other person in the photo with him also looked a little immature, a look Han Sen had never seen before, but that person was clearly James.

(End of this chapter)